Object love: when people fall for pool toys, bridges, and the Statue of Liberty

Reporter: Denham Hitchcock

Sunday Night

Published: 19/05/2019Updated: 21 May 2019 4:02 pm

Crazy in Love

Mark is in love with a plastic pool toy. Jodi married a bridge. Amanda is besotted by her chandelier. It sounds bizarre - but their love is absolutely real.

Mark is a 27-year-old man. He's educated, well-spoken, and holds down a full time job - but his love is unusual, to say the least.

He's obsessed with his pool toys. Not in the way a collector might be obsessed, but romantically. There's Dreka the dragon, Sammy the shark, Gavin the griffin, Choko and Serena.

His obsession began when he was 14. "It started in 2006," Mark tells Sunday Night's Denham Hitchcock. "That's when I noticed I started having some sort of compassion, some sort of interest in inflatable animals."

This type of relationship is more common than you might think. Dr Amy Marsh is a sexologist - and the world’s foremost expert on the condition known as object love.

"Sexual or affectionate romantic orientation consists of people who have very robust, rich, complex relationships with an object or maybe a number of objects," she explains.

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'Robust, rich, complex relationships with an object or maybe a number of objects'

Dr Amy Marsh completed the world’s only study on Objectum Sexuality, where she interviewed dozens of people. The condition has nothing to do with childhood trauma, or previous bad relationships. Her conclusion is that it’s real love - and it’s uncontrollable and powerful.

"I've tried dating normal people," says Mark. "They can't be there all the time. They have lives too. If I am going through a tough time and I need someone to hug and wrap my arms around to get me through it, I have them."

Jodi Rose’s wedding video is just like any wedding video - except she’s quite literally standing on the groom.

Jodi married a bridge.

"It felt beautiful," she recalls. "It felt really, really exciting. I was really quite nervous. I felt like a bride. I got to have my princess wedding day."

There are special characteristics which attracted Jodi to her husband. "He's very handsome, he's strong and sturdy, and I thought, this is someone I can connect with, and who I feel will kind of give me some grounding."

Dr Marsh says there's typically a distinct reason for this kind of love to blossom. "There are different forms of sensory perception. I guess you would say where you might smell colours or taste sounds, and there's a form called object personification in synesthesia where you can sense personality in objects. That's very real for the person who has that going on."

What the object is itself is irrelevant, as long as it has emotional value to the person. They can vary in size from a fish-eye button to the Eiffel Tower or the Berlin Wall.

For Amanda, however, it was the statue of liberty in New York City.

She remembers what it was like the first time she visited the statue. "You feel like you're melting inside, and it feels like you've got butterflies in your stomach. You feel like you don't weigh anything. My mouth just wouldn't shut. The first time I touched her, I just touched the inside of a window. It felt like I was getting an electric shock. It just went through my whole body, the energy."

When it comes to object love, Amanda is a serial monogamist. She started out small. "That was my drum kit. I didn't expect it, I didn't try and force that to happen, I didn't know what it was at first."

"At first I was quite confused. Why was I feeling in love with my drum kit? Why was that?"

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'At first I was quite confused. Why was I feeling in love with my drum kit? Why was that?'

Her second relationship was a little different. "That was with the American flag, the stars and stripes. The flags were very silly. I thought the flags are childish. I think that was one of the reasons why maybe the love went after some time."

The Statue of Liberty was the next step, and she even legally changed her surname to Liberty, but true love was still ahead of Amanda. It happened when she bought a chandelier from an antique shop in England.

"I just had to have her. As soon as I got her home, I got her out of the bag straightaway and sat her on my knee, and there was something there. There was this spark, and I know that spark when I feel it. I thought, oh my God, what is happening, I'm in love with the Statue of Liberty, I'm not meant to be loving anyone else!"

Amanda’s house is now full of chandeliers, and she's engaged to one called Lumiere.

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'Amanda's house is now full of chandeliers, and she's engaged to one called Lumiere'

"We are like any other couple," she explains. "There's an energy that is given from people that are in love."

While Mark's object of choice is pool inflatables, he's still picky with the ones he falls for. "I usually let my heart choose. I look at their face and think, 'Oh, they're cute,' but sometimes I will look at their face and then for some reason or another, I just fall in love. It's like love and first sight."

Jodi just wants others to keep an open mind as far as love is concerned. "I feel like everyone has something, some sort of passion that lights a spark in them, that makes you feel more alive."

"There's someone for everyone. Or maybe even a few someones. Or some bridges. Or chandeliers. Or pool toys. Something, someone for everyone. It just proves that there is no limit to love and to the way you can feel love, experience love and express love."

Reporter: Denham Hitchcock | Producer: Karen Willing

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Jodi Rose amplifies and records the vibrations of bridges around the world for your listening pleasure. For more information about Jodi and her work please visit singingbridges.net and transitloungeradio.net.